


Umbrellas in the Hallway

by jellybean_thief



Category: Little Women Series - Louisa May Alcott
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22521973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybean_thief/pseuds/jellybean_thief
Summary: "...with a glad "Welcome home!" Jo led her lover in, and shut the door."Or, what happens in the moments after Jo and Bhaer arrive home after their little walk in the rain.
Relationships: Friedrich Bhaer/Josephine March
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	Umbrellas in the Hallway

They entered the house to general uproar -- not because Jo’s parents had been watching them from the window, and therefore saw the kiss she had pressed upon him at the doorstep, but rather because after the walk they’d had, both he and Jo were streaming water all over the entryway. Jo’s bonnet and dress -- clearly not her standard “shopping” outfit -- would need heavy work to be salvaged, and she was banished upstairs to change. Fritz himself was confined to the kitchen until an old outfit of Mr. March’s could be procured -- a task that took longer than expected. For, where March was long and lean, Bhaer was short and round, and the simple suit he was offered gaped alarmingly in some regions, even as it hung comically in others. A shouted conference with Mrs. March through the kitchen’s excellently thick door yielded the decision that Friedrich would borrow a thick dressing-gown along with a pair of the other man’s more roomily-cut pyjamas while they waited for his clothes to dry.

“Prut,” thought the man, as he rolled the sleeves and legs of the sleep-suit to size, “you proposed in a monsoon; now you must ask her parents for permission in a dressing-gown.” He would have liked to go about such things in a more traditional manner -- had, in fact, treasured a particular image of a warm midsummer twilight with a bouquet of flowers, a rising moon, and her parents’ permission already secured -- but first his courage had failed him, and then Jo’s own declaration of feelings had come so unexpectedly. And so, rather than facing his prospective in-laws in a suit and in advance of asking the all-important question, he found himself going about things entirely the wrong way. It was a small measure of the irregularity he’d grown to embrace in his life since the hurricane of Jo March had arrived in it, and, as he donned the robe, he found himself smiling at the realization that he could expect the entire rest of his life to proceed in much the same way.

Finally attired with some modicum of decency, he joined the family in the parlour and tried not to stare at Jo, who was sitting before the fire with her still-damp hair spilling over her shoulders.  
He’d found himself wondering, before, especially when pieces of it had come loose as she romped with the boys in Mrs. Kirke’s boarding house, what she might look like, hair unbound and free, but he’d never actually had the opportunity to see for himself. 

She was magnificent.

That said, if (when) he had imagined the opportunity to observe her unbound hair in the past, it certainly wasn’t in a room with her parents watching him openly admire their daughter. Jo, however, had no such compunctions about displaying affection, holding out a hand for Bhaer to join her on a spare stool drawn up to the fireside.

“Marmee, Father -- Friedrich and I have some wonderful news to share.” 

The news was exclaimed over, and congratulations offered -- and just as Jo and Mrs. March started to discuss whether or not it was prudent to brave the rain to invite Amy, Laurie, and Mr. Laurence over for a celebratory dinner, the back door to the kitchen banged open (Mr. Bhaer counted his lucky stars it hadn’t been a few minutes earlier) and Amy rushed in. As it happened, she had been looking out the window when Jo pressed a kiss upon Bhaer in the front yard, but had taken the time to don a pair of galoshes, a rain slicker, and find her second-best umbrella before making her way across the road to inquire whether there was anything her older sister wanted to share. Upon being asked to run back across the way to fetch the rest of her family, Amy simply smiled.

“I told Laurie if I wasn’t back in five minutes, that he and Grandfather should come along with a bottle of the Champagne we brought from France.”

And, when Laurie and the old man arrived, they came loaded with more than just the single bottle of alcohol -- pates, cheeses, fruit, and an excellent loaf of bread, all precariously loaded into a basket which Laurie had sacrificed his own umbrella to protect. 

And so, amidst much laughter and conviviality, it was decided that, rather than removing to the dining room, with its formal seating and lack of easy access to the fireplace, Jo’s celebratory supper would take place as a picnic right where they were, and where the multiple wet participants could continue to toast their feet and backs as they felt necessary.

**Author's Note:**

> This story, as you see it, was written a few years back: the first part of an intended much longer piece about the period between Jo and Bhaer’s engagement and actual marriage. But life got busy, I stopped writing, I lost interest in telling that story. But, when reviewing my old WIPs this afternoon (frankly, wanting to find something to work on again), I found this, and, while I still don’t want to return to the story, I liked it as it was. I think it functions as a stand-alone, so I figured I’d toss it out as a “missing scene,” as it were. 
> 
> I figure anyone who's in this fandom has probably read everything in their particular interests, but just in case, I want to particularly recommend Middlemarch’s “The Ecstasy to Guess.” I had similar ideas in mind when I started working on this; her piece covers the same emotional terrain, and more elegantly. Anyone looking for good Jo/Bhaer will be well-served.


End file.
